Dragons, Dragons Everywhere!

Morning explorations...

Today was a journaling day.  We have gotten somewhat out of the habit of journaling in recent weeks. However, friends are increasingly interested in reading and writing, and there has been a spurt in literacy. Thus, we will be having friends journal at least three days a week. If you have the time and can stay to journal with your child, we encourage you to do so. If you can't, no worries, we love to journal with the Catbirds!

Some reminders regarding journaling:

1. The journals are kid-lead - friends are encouraged to draw or write anything that interests them. If friends are drawing, it may or may not be representational.
2. If friends write, we are asking them to "kid write," - journals should be stress free. Working on writing skills, letter shapes and spelling comes in other forums.
3. When friends are finished drawing, we ask that the adult working with them date the page, and then ask simply, "What would you like me to write?" We are encouraging story telling, sentence building, and the flow of ideas. Words may or may not relate to the drawing.
4. Most importantly, we want journaling to be an enjoyable experience. Friends are developing a baseline of academic skills and we are most focused on setting them up as lifelong learners - students who are invested and eager to create and read and write. If you are feeling particularly pressed for time, DO NOT FEEL PRESSURED TO JOURNAL WITH YOUR CHILD. Just let Amy or I know and we will gladly jump in.

We did, finally, get to spend some time outdoors today. We are somewhat out of practice, so getting friends into snow clothes took a loooooooonnnnng time. However, once they got out, it was fun in the snow.

Back inside, we gathered for Morning Meeting. We read another new dragon book, The Tale of Custard the Dragon. This book got many thumbs up (and even some Moose Ears...ask your Catbird about our book rating system), taught us some new vocabulary words AND engendered a discussion about what it means to be brave! Next, we sang some of our favorite songs and a couple of requests.

The Cha Cha Challenge today continued the Tricky Tall Tower building, but this time, required balancing some precarious cans.

We introduced a new musical instrument, the autoharp.

Other choices included...

When Carol went to lunch, she discovered that something special was going on back stage. So, after lunch, some Catbirds went to check it out!

Turns out, they are building a DRAGON! Joe and Rob showed us what they have done so far, and explained the process and the materials. They have invited us to check in regularly, to watch the dragon grow.

Light up eyes.

This is Mary, who has the model of what the dragon will eventually look like.